Secondly, economic inequalities would also lead to economic emergencies, for the reason that it would garner the existence of monopolies and oligopolies. These market states would lead to inefficiencies as well as exploitation of the consumer. This is due to the fact that the monopolies are no longer in competition with anyone, and therefore, have no incentive to spend money on research and development and create new ideas to benefit the consumer; or even consider the welfare of the consumer.
Roy Jenkins in his well known paper called Equality regards the struggle for equality in society as a situation where “men will be separated from each other less sharply by variations in wealth and origin than by difference in character”. Inequalities in wealth will also lead to a pseudo caste system, as both caste and inequality are closely related. An explanation to this is because the people in the lower bracket will not be able to better themselves and escape from destitution.
Rawls argues in his two principles of justice- that each person should be given an equal right to basic liberties and that social and economic inequalities could only be justified if they advantage everyone and are attached to offices which are open equally to everyone (fair equality of opportunity). If the offices were not fairly open to everyone, i.e. if everyone did not get an equal opportunity, Rawls says that they would “be deprived of one of the main forms of human good”. This is because, this inequality stops them from the rewards attached to the office, as well as, excludes them from experiencing self-realisation. Dworkin, on the other hand, states that equality of resources is an appropriate subject for moral concern. It could be concluded that Dworkin implicitly accepts the theory of equality.
Economic inequalities often lead to related inequalities in political power. This is because, the more wealth a person has, the stronger command they have in politics or the stronger the hold they have on people. Those who have more money are therefore able to fund major political campaigns and “buy” the votes of those who are more disadvantaged. This will threaten the democratic system of a county. In turn, they may also create policies that would advantage the wealthy and broaden the gap between the rich and the poor and therefore, widen inequality.
Personally, I reject the egalitarians’ view that equality is desirable and I feel that, evidently, inequality is inevitable. As Nozick proposes, this egalitarian goal of “attempting to provide equality is actually worsening the situations of those more favoured with opportunity”. He adds that even by improving the situation of those less favoured, resources still need to be used and therefore, declining the situation of some. Although inequality is not morally desirable to certain people, it is clear to me that it is less undesirable than the effects that bringing about equality render. This is because; there can be no justification to worsen the situation of those in the better position.
Aristotle once said that “injustice arises when unequals are treated unequally, but also when unequals are treated equally”. I support his view and that it would seem unfair to treat people who are blatantly different, in the same manner. As William Letwin also argued, “in as much as people are unequal, it is rational to presume that they ought to be treated unequally – which might mean larger shares for the needy or larger shares for the worthy”. The unfairness in treating unequals equally is apparent because, there is no valid reason for giving an undeserving person the same amount as person who has worked hard and deserved it. This is clarified in the Theory of Deserts which states that a person who does something good is rewarded, and the person who something bad does not deserve anything, or deserves reprimanding. This argument outlines a weakness in the egalitarian argument for equality.
Thus, inequality is not fundamentally wrong. If the people at the top of the economic hierarchy were to get an unequal amount (more money) compared to those at the bottom, it would lead to a trickle down effect. Therefore, the economic benefits experienced by the wealthy at the top of the pyramid, would “trickle down” to benefit those in the lower class.
As Nozick once argued, “taxation of earnings from labour is on a par with forced labour”. If everyone was being taxed so that the distribution of income is equal, it would seem that we are not being given wages for our labour, which essentially equates taxation to slavery. Granted his view on the matter is slightly extreme, but it clarifies how it is unjustifiable to equalise wealth in situations where people have earned it.
Throughout the first part of this essay, I have attempted to explain both notions of equality and inequality. Having considered both concepts, I can state that there is truly nothing wrong with inequality and that is not in actuality an appropriate subject for moral concern. Margaret Thatcher once said that “we have a right to be unequal” and this right should be upheld. Whilst society generally demands for equality, it is inequality that is practiced.
It has been argued that to remedy inequality, we should “level down”. The principle of levelling down; states that in order to make everyone equal, and get rid of inequalities, we should bring everyone down to a lower level if it is the only way to secure equality. The justification for levelling down starts from the observation that in principle; “equality could be brought about by reducing the better off to the condition of the worse off”. Parfit argues that Telic Egalitarians (ones who argue that it is intrinsically bad if certain group of people are worse off than others) are defenceless against the Levelling Down Objection. However, post Rawls (1971), Frankfurt (1987) and Parfit (1998); most egalitarians would say they too reject this idea of levelling down, and instead, they prefer some form of sufficiency or prioritarian position. This leads us to the question; can there ever be any situations where it would be deemed correct to ‘level down’? Are there any justifications for depriving both the advantaged and disadvantaged?
It would seem clear that, on the face of things, that it is unjust to make someone worse off for the sake of another.
Consider the scenario in Palmer v Thompson, where the African American residents of Mississippi challenged the racial segregation of swimming pools in their town. Instead of uplifting the ban on African Americans on four of the pools in the area, the court decided to end having public pools completely. This is a clear example of judges levelling down to secure this pseudo equality. I would suggest that the judges’ decision to level down seems unnecessary, when there is an equally egalitarian alternative available, which is to open the pool to everyone regardless of race. Levelling down is seen as an option out of dealing with the situation rather than finding a solution.
Levelling down is contradictory to Rawls’ difference principle, which in essence promotes “levelling up” as a remedy to inequality: where it would only be reasonable to unequally give more resources to the advantaged if it would allow those less advantaged to increase their welfare. Therefore, it could be argued that instead of making everyone worse off, those at the top of the proverbial pyramid could help those at the lower level. Take for instance the example of giving a blind person an eye from a sighted person so that both have sight (advantaged). I believe this concept to be wrong because the advantaged person with sight could help blind person, without having to compromise his sight. However, it is important to note that this example is very drastic as it involves human organs, but the correlation with real life situations is still there.
Levelling down will not improve inequality. This concept of distributive justice seems impossible to implement realistically. One reason is the question of - whether or not we would have to level down every time someone gains more resources by achieving something? It would be ridiculous to constantly have to check that everyone has an equal amount or resources and constantly having to level down.
On the other hand, there can be certain situations where levelling down would be unavoidable and necessary. Consider the example of a person suffering misfortune, and as a result is as worse off as everyone else. This should be seen as a good thing because by being “worse off for some and better off than no one”, the inequality between the two groups has been removed. Jonathan Woolf in his paper titled “Levelling Down” puts front an argument for levelling down. He states that we first have to “choose our currency of justice”, and then only there could be a validation for levelling down in another currency. This means that in order to benefit the disadvantaged, we should just reduce the number of resources available to them. Thus, by reducing their resources we can limit the over-crowding effect. However, in order to even agree to the idea of levelling down, there should be a better breakdown of the concept.
These observations all support my assumption in the argument that we should not succumb to levelling down to secure equality, when it is apparent that there are other mechanisms that can be employed to bring about this coveted notion of equality. As Parfit suggests, “if we achieve equality by levelling down, there is nothing good about what we have done”.
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